Professor Lieven Vandersypen will be QuTech’s new Director of Research starting on 1 September 2020. That will also make him Chair of the Management Board of QuTech. He will succeed Professor Ronald Hanson who filled this post from the end of 2016. The Executive Board of TU Delft announced the appointment last week.
“I feel honoured, and simultaneously I feel a heavy responsibility,” said Vandersypen in a telephone interview. “What makes QuTech so special is that it is a young institution that regularly reinvents itself. At the same time, we’re working in a field of research (the development of the quantum computer, eds.) that is extremely international and competitive.” Another feature that sets QuTech apart is its status as collaboration between TU Delft and TNO. This construction gives the Director more freedom but less certainty than research groups within TU Delft . Vandersypen does not foresee major changes in direction, partly because as the Roadmap Director he co-authored the current research agenda. To make time for the directorship and his research (he was recently awarded EUR 2.5 million in an ERC research grant), he will withdraw from the physics table at NWO and reduce the numbers of lectures he will give. The appointment is for a period of four years. In that time, QuTech will grow to some 350 employees – about 100 more than today.
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